Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Pessimistic....

I'm feeling very pessimistic lately. Which isn't comfortable for me. It's like wearing some one else's shoes. Just not okay.

But I had this horrid realization last week that my world view is probably wrong. Like really off. See I always feel like if you get to know people it's very hard to hate People. You know? Like you can't really hate Poor People once you know (or have been) a poor person. You can't really hate Christians once you know a Christian and so on and so on. It's hard to keep up the hatred of a group once you know the individuals. Now you might get to know an individual and still hate them, that one particular person, but you don't usually project that specific hate on to a group.

So anyway...I've always felt that we just needed to get to know other people more. Broaden our horizons. Expand our bases. If we took the time to do this then we would be a lot less likely to hate other People. We would have more civil discourse over things we disagreed on. We would be able to reach compromises instead of wanting to annihilate the other side. That's what I've always thought.

Over the years watching how the US is starting to tear itself apart I was getting a little discouraged. People say horrid things about other groups of People. And it's encouraged instead of discouraged. See Donald Trump's rise in the polls for instance. Look at online comments and see how dismissive people are of anyone who isn't exactly like them. The hatred of the Poor, the Rich, the Republicans, the Democrats, the Liberals and the Conservatives. Look at the glee dance that is performed when THE OTHER SIDE fucks up publicly. Or even doesn't. See the New York Times publishing an article about Hilary Clinton that was riddled with errors and yet nobody is paying attention to the fact that it wasn't true, it's already got a life of its own.

It's very discouraging.

But that isn't even the part that made me the most pessimistic. It's how young our country is. We are barely over 200 years old. Babies in the grand scheme of things. Nothing like the cradle of civilization that is Africa and the Middle East where things are....

Well...

Awful.

Is that too strong? Maybe not strong enough.

Civil wars. Tribal feuding. Religious wars. Sects within the SAME RELIGION that want to kill each other off. Hatred that goes back more generations than the United States has been in existence. Familiarity breeds contempt. And war. And murder. And...

So I'm pessimistic.

So much for my theory that if you just got to know each other you would be fine. Because it seems like we just don't want to get to know each other.

Is it any coincidence that most religions in the world preach peace yet most people don't practice it? It keeps getting preached by religions and spiritual leaders and gurus of all stripes. If we just loved each other it would be better. But our nature says fuck that guy. I will love only those people that are most like me and the rest of you I will continue hating. I will justify it however I have to (not my religion, not the right branch of my religion, not rich enough, too rich, not the right color, not the right political party, not the right side of an imaginary border) but I will justify it and I will hate you. Peace out, bitches....

It's discouraging. I'm pessimistic that it's ever going to get better. Thousands of years in Africa, the Middle East and they are still trying to kill each other. How are we expected to do any better? After all we are just them in a different place. If only People would understand that we are all just people...